40 Unity Stronger Than Divisions

40 UNITY STRONGER THAN DIVISIONS UKRAINE’S INTERNAL DIVERSITY Tadeusz A. Olszański 40 NUMBER 40 WARSAW MARCH 2014 UNITY STRONGER THAN DIVISIONS UKraIne’S INTernaL DIVersITY Tadeusz A. Olszański © Copyright by Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich im. Marka Karpia / Centre for Eastern Studies Content editor Adam Eberhardt, Wojciech Konończuk Editor Anna Łabuszewska Co-operation Katarzyna Kazimierska Translation OSW Co-operation Jim Todd Graphic design PARA-BUCH DTP GroupMedia Photograph on cover: Shutterstock PubLIsher Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich im. Marka Karpia Centre for Eastern Studies ul. Koszykowa 6a, Warsaw, Poland Phone + 48 /22/ 525 80 00 Fax: + 48 /22/ 525 80 40 osw.waw.pl ISBN 978-83-62936-42-7 Contents SUMMARY /5 INTRODUCTION /7 I. THE FACTORS OF UKRAINE’S INTERNAL DIVERsiTY /9 II. THE FACTORS OF UKRAINE’S NEW UNITY /13 III. THE DiscOURSE OF ‘TWO UKRAINES’ /18 IV. UNITY AND DIVisiONS IN THE MAIDAN (AND BEYOND) /21 V. THE IDEA OF FEDERALisATION AND ITS siGNIFicANCE /25 VI. FROM MOscOW’S POINT OF VIEW /31 VII. A SPEciAL CASE: CRIMEA /33 CONCLUsiONS /35 SUMMARY • Ukraine is deeply divided internally, but in this respect it is not significantly different from many other countries in Europe and the world. As a result of the changes that have taken place since its independence, the country’s internal divisions now have less and less to do with territorial divides, and the split into historical ‘sub-Ukraines’ has become less pronounced, especially for the younger generation. Several factors have con- tributed to strengthening Ukraine’s unity, including a school education system that has reinforced the perception that unity is the natural state of affairs. Other factors include the sta- bilisation of the state structures, including the bureaucracy with its tendency to preserve the status quo. In the meantime, however, social and generational divisions have become more visible. These may pose a challenge to Ukraine’s internal or- der, but not to its unity. • Ukraine is not a country of two competing regional identities, one in the west, the other in the east. The western identity, with sobornost’ (the unity and indivisibility of Ukraine) as a key value, coexists with the multiple and diverse local patri- otisms of the different regions in the east and the south of the country, as well as a specific Transcarpathian identity. Crimea is an exception here, because in most respects it has remained unaffected by the dynamics of the social processes transform- ing mainland Ukraine. • The present protest movement (the broadly-understood Maid- an) has consolidated the country’s sense of unity. The indivisibility of Ukraine has been championed not only by the pro- 03/2014 testers in the Maidan, but also by people in the Yanukovych camp; and even the backers of the ousted leadership tend to raise separatist slogans only exceptionally. Claims about the impending split, or federalisation, of the country, which have in large part been a product of the media, are aimed at POINT OF VIEW 5 sabotaging the Maidan, but there is no political programme behind them. • It is quite likely that most of those claims are inspired by, or come from, the Russian Federation, and that they are ad- dressed to Western public opinion, which has been uncritical of reports of an impending ‘division of Ukraine’. From Mos- cow’s point of view, a division of Ukraine would be hardly advantageous to Russian interests. Russia would have to pay a price for keeping the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine within its orbit, and that price would be the emergence of a de- cisively hostile western Ukrainian state, as well as a number of other adverse international consequences. Russia’s aim is to preserve its influence throughout the whole of Ukraine, and not just in parts of it. The annexation of Crimea in March 2014 does not invalidate this assessment. • A protracted civil war is the only scenario in which Ukraine could really face disintegration. However, since Ukrainian society is not split into two conflicting groups, such a war (going beyond clashes, possibly involving armed action, between the people and the government) is highly unlikely. It would also run counter to the interests of all parties to the present conflict and its observers. 03/2014 POINT OF VIEW 6 INTRODUCTION The wave of protests that has gripped Ukraine since late Novem- ber 2013, provoked by Kyiv’s decision not to sign the association agreement with the European Union, has since transformed into an anti-government movement seeking deep political change. In the course of the protests both sides have raised the threat of disintegration, or even a political division of Ukraine. Some of them have warned against the consequences of deepening internal divisions in the event of the conflict continuing, while others have advocated a formal division of the country, arguing that this of- fers a chance to avoid its uncontrolled disintegration. Such claims have worried many people, also beyond Ukraine, about the du- rability of the Ukrainian state, and galvanised traditional views about the depth and power of the country’s internal divisions. However, those views are largely obsolete. They fail to take into account the changes that have occurred over the nearly quarter- century of Ukraine’s existence as a state. A generation which has never experienced any reality other than the independent Ukrain- ian state in its current borders has already grown up in Ukraine. The way the protests have unfolded so far has shown that the link between political and social divisions on the one hand, and historical and territorial splits on the other, is increasingly weak. The Maidan has become an integrating element which has strength- ened the young generation’s belief that the homeland is a supreme good, and that democracy and pro-Western policies serve the interests of young people in all regions of Ukraine. Moreover, even among those who oppose the pro-Western option there are hardly any advocates of division of the country, even in the form of federalisation. 03/2014 The present paper will discuss the historical origins of Ukraine’s internal diversity, and will then show how this diversity has changed over time as a result of the emergence and existence of the independent Ukrainian state. It will also briefly discuss the POINT OF VIEW 7 way in which Ukrainian intellectuals approach the country’s internal divisions today. In the following sections it will delve into the impact of the ongoing protests on the formation of a sense of civil unity in Ukraine, and the political significance of the propo- sition of federalising the country. The final part will reflect on the position of the Russian Federation and the consequences for Rus- sia of Ukraine’s potential division. 03/2014 POINT OF VIEW 8 I. THE FACTORS OF UKRAINE’S INTERNAL DIVERsiTY Ukraine is a country of great internal diversity, but it would not be difficult to name countries that are more diversified than it is while at the same time being much smaller (for instance Belgium). Ukraine has existed as an independent state since 1991, and was given its current territorial shape in 1944, as a Soviet republic. Ten years later, Crimea was attached to it, but, as the peninsula had never before been associated with any state entity that could be regarded as Ukrainian and differs from continental Ukraine in almost every respect, it will be excluded from further analysis. Ukraine’s most important historical division, albeit one that is seldom mentioned today, concerns the line between the historical Rus, which has been part of Europe for a thousand years, and the area of the Great Steppe in the east and south of the country, incorporated into the European civilizational space only in the late eighteenth century. The second most important dividing line separates those lands which were part of the Russian Empire from the end of the eighteenth century, and those annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II (Volhynia being a special case here, as the region was separated from the Russian/Soviet state during the inter-war period). Those historical divisions are reflected in Ukraine’s ethnic and religious splits. Rural areas in most of Ukraine are inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians. Large Russian communities exist only in the southern oblasts and the Donetsk Basin, but substantial groups of Russians also live in Ukraine’s major cities, especially in the eastern and southern parts of the country. In the east, substan- 03/2014 tial swathes of the society do not profess any ethnic identity, as a result of decades of Sovietisation. The Greek Catholic religion is dominant in Eastern Galicia, and Orthodox Christianity is the main religion in the rest of the country. However, in the east and the south, mostly but not only in cities, atheists and people who do POINT OF VIEW 9 not identify with any confession constitute a substantial propor- tion of the population. The fact that some regions were subjected to Sovietisation for longer than others is also reflected in the deep ideological and political divisions in Ukraine: the western oblasts (as well as Kyiv, which is home to huge numbers of migrants from the western part of the country) were already more disposed towards independent political and civil activity towards the end of the Soviet area (and thereafter, they also displayed a stronger entrepreneur- ial spirit). The further east, the less people were willing to act on their own, and the more they tended to expect the government to dictate solutions. However, even in western Ukraine, Sovietism undermined the civil and patriotic traditions, and ‘infected’ the national and nationalist movements with elements of Communist ideology and the low intellectual standards typical of the Soviet mentality.1 * Today many of those divisions are treated as aspects of the under- lying territorial division.

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